


Fighting the Citizens of Hieron: A To-Do List

by Anonymous



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crack, Gen, Humor, Non-Graphic Violence, Not!Fic, Season: Winter in Hieron, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22645216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: This is not a “should you fight” post because that would imply that there is anything that could stop me from fighting these jerks, and also that it would ever be a good idea. Instead, it's my best prediction for how these fights will go.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Anonymous





	Fighting the Citizens of Hieron: A To-Do List

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just about at the end of Winter, and at this point I want to fight pretty much everyone in the show, so I decided to make an itemized list. It was originally just supposed to go on tumblr, but then it got long enough that I didn't want to inflict it on anyone's dash, so you get to see it here instead. I'm sure you're thrilled.
> 
> This is set around the time of the murder mystery special, because that way I don't have to waste time tracking all the PCs down. It doesn't help my prospects much, but at least I'm not running around in moth forest.

**0\. Lenny Linova**

He’s not a major character, but if I’m in Rosemerrow anyway it is my moral duty to fight him. His face makes a satisfying thud when my fist connects. The satisfaction of fighting him fills me with a false optimism that will carry me through the rest of my mission.

**1\. Emmanuel**

I nearly forgot he’d been a pirate when making this post, so presumably I do the same and challenge him first, thinking he’ll be a good warm up. Fortunately he doesn’t want to make a scene, so he just lets me tire myself out while he waits for the police to come arrest me.

**2\. Adaire**

There is a 50% chance she manages to talk me into finding an alternate solution that benefits us both. There is a 100% chance that she poisons me in the middle of her attempt to do so. I wake up several hours later, relieved of most of my possessions with a note that just says “do better” in my pocket.

**3\. Lem**

Lem also tries to talk me out of fighting him, if only because he could use that alignment move XP. When it fails, he pulls out his violin to try to disorient me. This immediately succeeds as I go into a rant about how pattern magic is ridiculous. He stabs me while I’m distracted, but at least he has the good grace to look abashed about it.

**4\. Throndir**

I don’t think I even manage to challenge Throndir. I shout his name dramatically and he’s friendly in response, ruining the head of steam I’ve built up. I try to cling to my indignation by remembering that time he led his friends into a town full of torture elves, but that just gets me thinking about his belief in other people and how I wouldn’t want to disappoint him yet again. I wave at him weakly. Then Kodiak knocks me over and I suffocate in his fur.

**5\. Fantasmo**

I go after Fantasmo next to try to get back in the swing of things, because I know I can stay mad at him. I’m not prepared for him to give me the disappointed professor lecture. As a product of the American school system, this freezes me in my tracks, and I end up doing an errand for him as a punishment. The memory of this only makes me want to fight him more, but I cannot escape my mental conditioning.

**5.5 Arrell**

Arrell tries the same thing Fantasmo did, leaving himself open for me to get a solid hit in. He fireballs me into oblivion in response but I die content.

At this point I’ve antagonized half the PCs, so I leave town before they can compare notes about that weird person who keeps challenging them for no reason and to no effect. I’m probably the subject of a single confused breakfast conversation as I travel Hieron, tracking down my next targets.

**6\. Uklan Tell**

I explain to him that I have no personal problem with him, but I can’t fight pattern magic itself so he’s the next best thing. He nods and then waves a spoon at me. A dog crate falls on me out of nowhere and traps me for several hours until I can annoy him into letting me out. I tell him to say hi to Sunder for me as I leave. He understandably does not.

**7\. The Entire Village of Auniq**

By setting my target as the village, I manage to claim a moral victory when I punch the wall once before getting thrown into elf prison. I am eventually released when it is proven that I am incapable of posing a threat to anyone. I say rude things and get myself thrown into the woods to die of exposure.

**8\. Red Jack**

I go to challenge Red Jack and he gives me advice on how to be more dramatic about it. His lessons are very useful, and I come away kicking myself for not coming to him before setting out on this quest. I forget that I was also supposed to challenge him until several hours later.

**9\. Samol**

Fighting a terminally ill old man does give me pause, but then he pulls the condescending greeting thing he did to Stornras and I am forcibly reminded of everything he said in Marielda. I do smile before I charge so he knows I’m doing this out of pettiness rather than alignment with the Heat and the Dark. Maybe he’ll appreciate it enough to leave multiple atoms in my body connected to each other.

**10\. Samot**

It’s been nearly an entire season since [my last post](https://ipreparedexplosiverunes.tumblr.com/post/189073465368/gods-of-hieron-ranked-by-how-much-i-respect-them) and I still don’t have any better grasp of this dude or his motivations. All I know is that I will not be stopped from attempting to fight him, and it will not end well for me. Maybe it’ll at least cheer him up. He does seem to like stupid decisions.

**11\. Cool Ranch**

I probably get stuck here for ages because every time I fight him, he says something obnoxious about the nature of people or confidence or whatever as he shatters my bones and then I have to fight him again. He probably gets fed up with it eventually and stops talking, at which point I can rest and find a new target. I make the “I’ve got my eye on you” gesture as I leave and am killed one last time when a rock falls out of his walls and crushes me.

At this point I’m done with my murder tour and can return to Rosemerrow. There's no good reason for the PCs to have stayed there for this long, but it’s not like I have any sense of time after all the dying I’ve been doing. All that matters is that there are people left to fight.

**12\. Fero**

Fero is totally up for fighting me right up until he jumps on me as some weird animal and I crumple instantly. After that, he still doesn’t have a problem fighting me, but there’s nothing in it for him. He walks away delivering a comment that isn’t nearly as cutting as he wants it to be, but that’s okay, because he’s just given me a new and exciting phobia.

**13\. Hadrian**

Hadrian probably hesitates to fight me, if only because it seems like the right thing to do. Fortunately, between Red Jack’s teachings and my own natural ability to make people hate me, I manage to convince him I count as a monster pretty quickly, at which point he has no qualms about snapping my neck. After all, I might have had a broomstick.

**14\. Ephrim**

I have to respect how straightforward Ephrim is with his problem-solving methods. I tell him I’m here to fight him and he’s already in the process of setting me on fire. I came prepared and reveal my secret bucket of water, which I am very proud of right up until he shoves his fire sword into my chest.

**15\. Hella**

I’ve been putting this one off because the only way I’ve been able to get as far as I have is a copious amount of goodwill from Adelaide, and fighting her girlfriend seems like a good way to go from “amusing and harmless” to “harmless but no longer to be tolerated”. I’ve got a mission, though, and I’m determined to see it through. I march up to Hella and before I’ve said anything she recognizes me from her friends’ descriptions and cuts off my hand, then leaves me to bleed out.

Of course, this was all part of the plan, because I needed a way to get at the last person on my checklist. Time to find out what happens when you die inside the sword.

**16-20. Fester, Smolder, Garner, and Bewilder**

Much like Lenny Linova, these are people I’m fighting because I’m here and they’re jerks. This thought carries me right up until there are four identical knives at my throat, at which point I remember that they thought they were good enough to assassinate a god. I still make fun of their names, which are bad even by mage standards.

**21\. Samothes 1.0**

The good news is that it seems like time in the sword has calmed him down, so I won’t be getting the lectures and can only fight him the once. The bad news is that I’ve definitely suffered enough head trauma that any information I could have gotten from fighting Maelgwyn has long since been replaced by the flavor of dirt across Hieron. Probably ends with him shaking his head at me in disappointment as I mumble about how he’s not my real dad.

**22\. Adelaide**

There are so many reasons I don’t want to fight Adelaide, but she approaches me when I think I’m done, commenting that it would be a shame to give up so close to the end. I stammer out some excuse. Amused, she offers me the first hit. I stumble, hesitate, or flinch, thinking about how this is the Queen of Death, Empress of Pearls, The Reluctant Savior of the Longest Light, Blessed by the Far Sea. I’m still running through her titles when she obliterates me from existence.

I arrive in the Heat and the Dark with my fists up. 

**Author's Note:**

> "Why did you make this anonymous but then link your tumblr anyway?" you might ask, to which my answer is 1) I need to answer for my crimes but 2) I don't need anyone subscribed to me to suffer with me. Feel free to come yell at me for this though.


End file.
